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Ruling Party Again Holds Back On Ousting Opposition Lawmakers


Armenia - Deputies from the opposition Hayastan bloc attend a session of the Armenian parliament in Yerevan, December 2, 2022.
Armenia - Deputies from the opposition Hayastan bloc attend a session of the Armenian parliament in Yerevan, December 2, 2022.

The ruling Civil Contract party has again refrained from stripping opposition lawmakers of their parliament seats because of their seven-month boycott of the Armenian parliament.

The 35 members of the 107-seat parliament representing Hayastan and Pativ Unem alliances began the boycott in April in advance of their daily demonstrations demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation.

They failed to force him to step down before deciding in mid-June to scale back the protests sparked by Pashinian’s apparent readiness to make major concessions to Azerbaijan. The opposition lawmakers ended the boycott in November.

Under Armenian law, a parliament deputy can lose their seat if they skip, for “non-legitimate” reasons, at least half of parliament votes during a single semi-annual session of the National Assembly. The final decision to that effect is to be made by the Constitutional Court.

The parliament’s leadership has repeatedly threatened to appeal to the court for that purpose. It said earlier this week that 22 deputies representing Hayastan can now be formally accused of absenteeism.

It was due to meet on Friday to decide whether to ask the court to strip them of their seats. The meeting was rescheduled for next week because senior opposition lawmakers refused to attend it.

“The Civil Contract faction has decided not to apply to the Constitutional Court,” Hayk Konjorian, the ruling party’s parliamentary leader, told journalists.

“We want to enable citizens who voted for the opposition to remain represented in the National Assembly,” he said, adding that the parliament’s pro-government majority also wants to give the opposition “a chance to come to the parliament and work.”

Konjorian also warned: “Our decision doesn’t mean that in the event of the next such situation we won’t apply to the Constitutional Court.”

Artsvik Minasian, one of the 22 oppositionists risking expulsion from the National Assembly, shrugged off the decision, saying that the ruling party is exploiting the issue to try to bully the opposition and hold it in check.

Minasian insisted that the opposition boycott of parliament sessions did not amount to absenteeism. He argued that pro-government deputies themselves have repeatedly boycotted extraordinary sessions initiated by the opposition minority.

Minasian also said the opposition may soon ask the court to determine whether the relevant legal clause invoked by the authorities is constitutional.

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